Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Cover letter tip: remember you are the editor's obedient servant

Just started chapter two of Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton. Thought this was funny:

On April 6, 1771, he published a pair of poems in the [Royal DanishAmerican] Gazette that he introduced with a diffident note to theeditor: "Sir, I am a youth about seventeen, and consequently such an attempt asthis must be presumptuous; but if, upon perusal, you think the following pieceworthy of a place in your paper, by inserting it you'll much oblige Yourobedient servant, A.H." The two amorous poems that follow are schizophrenic intheir contrasting visions of love. In the first, the dreamy poet steals upon hisvirgin love, who is reclining by a brook as "lambkins" gambol around her. Hekneels and awakens her with an ecstatic kiss before sweeping her up in his armsand carrying her off to marital bliss, intoning, "Believe me love is doublysweet / In wedlock's holy bands." In the next poem, Hamilton has suddenlymetamorphosed into a jaded rake, who begins with a shocking, Swiftian openingline: "Celia's an artful little slut." This launched a portrait of amanipulative, feline woman that concludes:

So, stroking puss's velvet paws,How well the jade conceals her clawsAnd purrs; but if at lastYou hap to squeeze her somewhat hardShe spits—her back up—prenez garde;Good faith she has you fast.

The first poem seems to have been composed by a sheltered adolescent with anidealized view of women and the second by a world-weary young philanderer whohas already tasted many amorous sweets and shed any illusions about femalevirtue. In fact, this apparent attraction to two opposite types of women—thepure and angelic versus the earthy and flirtatious—ran straight throughHamilton's life, a contradiction he never resolved and that was to lead toscandalous consequences.